One by One

by Freida McFadden

PROLOGUE ANONYMOUS

I can tell you my secret right now: At the end of this week, only one of us will make it home alive.

I don’t know when I started to hate my husband.

Somehow, my fourth grader can wash his own clothes, but my adult husband is not capable of it.

But she’s not married. So she gets to do whatever she wants without another person criticizing her every move.

I’ve got enough secrets from my husband right now.

“You lost my shirt,” he says.

Men.

Emma is a different story. She attaches herself firmly to my hip, any comfort she had derived from the tickle attack now long faded.

Then again, there’s another reason why I want to go on this trip. And anyway, the reservation is nonrefundable.

Why can’t I push away this sick feeling?

If the two of us go out on a boat into the middle of the lake, I have a bad feeling only one of us will come back alive.

If we didn’t have two children together, I would call it quits right now. Right this minute.

That muscle is still twitching in his jaw. “Of course. Separate bedrooms. Perfect. Maybe we won’t have to see each other at all during this trip.” “Noah…” But before I can say another word, Noah reaches over and turns up the volume of the radio loud enough to drown out any attempt at conversation.

Ew tf

Or maybe next year we won’t be together anymore at all. You never know.

Then again, I have my reasons for wanting to go.

“So!” I say. “We finally get to meet Warner! Very exciting!”

AARON WARNER?! SIGN ME UP

5 ANONYMOUS

AHHH

Heat causes molecules to disperse, so each breath takes in less oxygen.

There was concern in her eyes. My mom never looked like that.

“You don’t deserve to be treated that way,” he says. My breath catches in my throat as he takes a step toward me. “Well, what can I do?” He shakes his head. “I wish it could be different.” “Me too.” My voice is shaking. “You have no idea.” He takes another step toward me, and this time he lowers his lips onto mine.

SAY WHATTT

“Did you get the separate room?” he breathes in my ear. “I sure did.” “Perfect.” He grins at me, his eyes crinkling. “This is going to be a fantastic week. I’m going to make you forget all about him.”

WHATTTR

Now you think I’m a terrible person.

I wasn’t dead. But Noah was killing me.

And of course, now that I’m sleeping with her husband, it’s hardly the time for us to start bonding.

“What sort of work do you do, Warner?” Michelle asks. “Plastic surgeon,” he says. Michelle snaps her fingers. “That’s what my client’s husband did. He was a plastic surgeon too.” Warner tugs at the collar of his shirt. “Interesting coincidence. What’s his name?”

It’s definitely not a coincidence

Noah blinks at us. “So nobody has a problem with making kids believe that a morbidly obese man comes down the chimney with a giant bag of presents? Nobody else is troubled by that?”

“Could you just… Just don’t talk to me, Claire. I need to focus.”

NOPE THATLL DO IT

I have to pee again.

“Of course! I used to go blueberry picking all the time when I was a kid.” She plucks a berry off the bush. “This is definitely a blueberry.”

Do not eat fucking berries in a random ass forest THIS BITCH HAS SURVIVAL INSTICTS OF A FUCKING TURTLE

Also, don’t blueberries ripen in July? It’s still only June.

OH HELL TO THE NO TF?

“Oh, come on. What are the chances some random berries we come across are poison?”

12 ANONYMOUS

AHHH

My mother grew berries in our backyard.

Fuck no

The blueberries tasted good, but I avoided them. Because of the nightshade. My mother grew deadly nightshade in our backyard.

BYE BYE LINDSAY

Belladonna berries look very much like blueberries. They’re shiny black, about half an inch in size, and they’re sweet. The berries are highly toxic. They cause delirium and hallucinations, and they disrupt the body’s ability to regulate its sweating, heart rate, and breathing. Eventually, seizures and cardiovascular failure will occur. Early humans made poisonous arrows using belladonna. In an adult, fifteen to twenty berries are enough to kill you. A child could die from two or three.

She secretly hoped to find a child lying dead in the backyard, a handful of berries clutched in their hand.

“I put in some blueberries from the garden,” she said. I pulled the Bulls cap low on my forehead as I stared down at the bowl of cereal. The berries were dark blue. They looked like blueberries.

I pushed the berries around the bowl with my spoon. My mom watched me. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”

My mother loved Snowball. She stroked the cat’s white fur gently. She would never let anything happen to Snowball.

“Fruit is good for you,” she said. “You have to eat it.”

Thanks to my mom, I know everything there is to know about poison berries.

He opens his mouth, but before he can get any words out, we hear a bloodcurdling scream.

The scream came from Lindsay.

“She’s having a seizure,” Warner says. “This isn’t good.” Well, duh.

Noah has his phone in his hand. My eyes light up when I notice he has a single bar. But then he shakes his head. “No service,” he says.

FUCKER

His full lips purse. “What do you want me to say? I’m sad. Of course I’m sad. Lindsay was a beautiful woman. This was tragic.” He takes a deep breath. “But it’s not going to help Lindsay for us to die here.”

“Michelle tripped and twisted her ankle,” Jack explains.

Deserved

“Oh.” She flashes me a bored look. “Sorry, I didn’t realize your little story was still going on. What were you asking me?”

“That’s why mosquitoes bite you so often,” Warner says. “Mosquitoes love type O blood.”

“I have memories of her,” Warner says patiently. “I just don’t think any of them are worth mentioning.”

Fucker